The Great Gilly Hopkins Lesson Plan | Unit Objectives

1. Through reading Katherine Paterson's The Great Gilly Hopkins, students will gain an appreciation for our basic need to belong.

2. Students will determine characters' status as static or dynamic.

3. Students will examine their own and the main character's racial prejudices.

4. Students will be exposed to components and aspects of foster care.

5. Students will gain appreciation for and demonstrate proficiency in identifying and using figurative language.

6. Students will demonstrate their understanding of the text on four levels: factual, interpretive, critical and personal.

7. Students will be given the opportunity to practice both reading aloud and reading silently to improve their skills in each area.

8. Students will answer questions to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the main events and characters in The Great Gilly Hopkins as they relate to the author's theme development.

9. Students will enrich their vocabularies and improve their understanding of the novel through the vocabulary lessons prepared for use in conjunction with the novel.

10.The writing assignments in this unit are geared to several purposes: a. to have students demonstrate their abilities to inform, to persuade, or to express their own personal ideas

Note: Students will demonstrate the ability to write effectively to inform by developing and organizing facts to convey information. Students will demonstrate the ability to write effectively to persuade by selecting and organizing relevant information, establishing an argumentative purpose, and by designing an appropriate strategy for an identified audience. Students will demonstrate the ability to write effectively to express personal ideas by selecting a form and its appropriate elements.

b. To check the students' reading comprehension

c. To make students think about the ideas presented by the novel

d. To encourage logical thinking